Starlight, thermal and personnel video streams can be added to existing video surveillance systems, while control room platforms enable all these streams to be monitored simultaneously, says video surveillance specialist Graphic Image Technologies (GIT) executive Laurence Smith.

Security companies can increase their surveillance equipment without changing their systems or networks, and can easily deploy new technologies to provide additional capabilities or security functions, such as thermal or starlight cameras. GIT has partnered with Israeli high-definition and personnel-video camera company DVTel and Israeli mobile video company SerVision.

“The SerVision platform enables control room operators to monitor all the video streams. Controllers can also select specific video feeds to monitor, for example, when an alarm is triggered, such as when a guard reports an incident or a perimeter exclusion system automatically detects that a person has entered a restricted area.

“The SerVision platform uses low bit-rate streams to enable control room operators to monitor hundreds of separate live video feeds remotely, while higher-quality video streams are used when a controller selects a feed or feeds to monitor actively. High-quality video is also recorded for use as evidence,” he adds.

At the Securex expo, held last month in Midrand, Smith demonstrated DVTel’s starlight and thermal camera systems, as well as the perimeter exclusion software, which can be used with any camera to trigger alarms if people entered a restricted area designated within the field of view of a camera. This system also applies to large sites, such at airports, factories or farms.

Further, ultrahigh-definition video streams, such as from 4k-resolution cameras, are shaped to match the display capabilities of a screen and can, thus, be used with existing monitors and computers in control rooms without impacting on the performance of the network.

“The resolution on standard monitors will increase as a user zooms into the feed from a 4k camera, providing significantly more detail for the user at higher zoom levels, compared with the detail that lower-resolution cameras provide.”

GIT is also offering the ability to view live video from cameras worn by security personnel, using the SerVision mobile digital video recorder, which enables streaming of live video to the control room at low bit-rates, while high-quality video is recorded on the device for use as evidence.